Texas Rangers outfielder Kole Calhoun didn’t just claim the 1,000th hit of his career on Friday night against the Oakland Athletics. He had a full-circle moment for his Major League career.
Calhoun’s milestone hit came in the seventh inning off A's starter Cole Irvin. In fact, Calhoun was the player that chased Irvin from the game, and Calhoun later scored on Nathaniel Lowe’s double, as the Rangers rallied from three runs down after six innings to win 8-5.
Kole Calhoun
Kole Calhoun
Calhoun later scored the go-ahead run in the top of the ninth, breaking a 5-all tie when he scored from third on Andy Ibáñez’s pinch-hit RBI single.
Calhoun is comfortable at Oakland Coliseum. In fact, when he broke into the Majors in 2012 with the Los Angeles Angels, Calhoun claimed his first Major League hit at the Coliseum in his second game, on May 23, 2012.
“My first (hit) was here too,” Calhoun said. “I debuted here, so I got my first one and my 1,000th here. It’s pretty special. It’s been a long road and to look up to see 1,000, it’s pretty cool.”
His hit against the Athletics on Friday was the 128th of his career against Oakland, his most against any team. It broke a tie with his 127 hits against the Texas Rangers.
Injuries sapped Calhoun’s production last season with Arizona, was he suffered a torn meniscus in March, a split hamstring tendon in April and played just 51 games, hitting .235 with five home runs and 17 RBI.
This season, Calhoun has reclaimed the form that made him an Athletics — and a Rangers — killer when he was with the Angels from 2012-18.
Entering Saturday’s game with Oakland, his 16-game on-base streak is among the best in the Majors and the longest of the season for the Rangers.
His May slash numbers are terrific — .338/.398/.689/1.087. This is the third time in Calhoun’s career that he’s hit at least seven home runs in a month. He leads the Rangers in home runs (seven), RBI (15), runs (18) and extra-base hits (11) in the month of May.
He’s among the American League leaders in slugging with players like Aaron Judge, Rafael Devers and Jose Altuve.
Kole Calhoun
Kole Calhoun and Adolis Garcia
Kole Calhoun
Calhoun started the season struggling at the plate and he was hitting .167 as recently as 16 games ago. Now his season average is .264.
His return to health has also fueled the Rangers’ recent surge. After starting the season 7-14 in April, Calhoun and the Rangers just secured the team’s first winning month since June of 2019.
The Rangers grabbed Calhoun for a bargain contract and are quickly reaping the benefits of that investment.
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